Earmarks are eternal

If it’s a $40,000 snowplow for clearing sidewalks that the town of Hingham wants, then a $40,000 snowplow for clearing sidewalks the town of Hingham — median income $103,000, median home value $766,000 — shall have.

But why on earth should the taxpayers of the entire commonwealth pay for it? Sadly that is how spending on Beacon Hill so often works. Local spending needs become the responsibility of state taxpayers, simply because a lawmaker asks his colleagues to make it happen and because leadership — for reasons the public will never know — gives it the green light.

That’s how amendment No. 82, which provides $40,000 to the tony town of Hingham for that piece of specialty public works equipment, became part of the Senate budget last week. Perhaps the only unusual thing is that the amendment was sponsored by a Republican (Patrick O’Connor of Weymouth).

Democrats got their fair share of pork, too. Sen. Anne Gobi scored $15,000 for a private group working to restore a windmill in Brimfield.

Sen. Marc Pacheco (DTaunton) managed to put state taxpayers on the hook for $15,000 so the town of Carver can design an addition to its town library for the local Council on Aging.

And then there are the dozens of earmarks in the tourism line item, which is the firstand-last refuge of any decent pork-seeking lawmaker.

Most of these amendments are relatively small potatoes, at least in the context of a $40 billion state budget.

And none of this is unique to the Senate. The House filled its own tourism line item with pork, too. Naturally there is a gazebo. (Isn’t there always a gazebo?) The House OK’d $25,000 for the town of Dracut to build a gazebo in memory of a late, local pol.

But at what point does someone stand astride the state budget and yell, “Stop!”

Last year Gov. Charlie Baker used his veto pen to X out 497 earmarks to help bring the budget back into balance; now many of them are rising like zombies to appear in next year’s budget.

In authorizing the most hyperlocal earmarks, lawmakers have all but forfeited their right to complain about the state’s “revenue problem.” Baker should make sure his veto pen still has plenty of ink.